So how would it work in this scenario if I'm unable to have children for medical reasons and my husband is? |
Would he have to pay the tax if I don't find him some woman to knock up? Then would we have to pay to assist raising this child? What about single people? |
Will we start having mandatory marriage too? |
[...] people are forced to have children they don't want. |
I hate the vast majority of children. They smell, they're loud, they're annoying and they're too much work. |
This is something a rational minarchist might advocate to solve the one fatal flaw of secular libertarianism: inevitable cultural and/or economic collapse due to very low birth rates.
Here's how it would work: each person is responsible for fathering / birthing and raising two children (unless you have a good medical excuse of course, but being gay ain't it).
If you fail to have your first child by 30 and second child by 40, you pay a hefty tax until you do. The money would be used to care for orphans, expand free / "open source" educational resources for children, and help poor people with lots of kids. It can be facilitated like Islamic taxation: forced through violence, but you can pay it to any valid cause, avoiding centralized government: reputable charities / orphanages or directly to people who have / adopt lots of kids, and so on.
Brace yourselves. If by mind can conceive of such evil, so can others.
And start having babies! I mean it!
And I'm totally going to impose this on myself when I turn 30.
I don't see either of these things as being iinevitable, or the problem as being likely. |
Why? Who do I have this responsibility to? |
Sorry, I own myself, and so nobody has any right that I have a child. |
Here is alternative: Why not draft people into breeding factories, milk sperm from them constantly, and forcably artificially fertilise women, keeping them restrained until the baby is born, so it isn't terminated. |
No Taxes for ANYTHING [...] |
[...] even if everyone only had 1 child and population declined slowly, advances in science would solve the Depopulation problems which we would have several generations to fix. |
[...] and of course there will be the Mormons who have like 10 kids to make up for the rest of the people |
Name one secular individualist culture that has a positive fertility rate?
Because you were born, which is a consequence of millions of your ancestors choosing to reproduce (and some of them had a far more difficult time with it than you would).
They may be dead, but it is the one responsibility that you inherit along with the benefits of life and civilization.
You don't own yourself just because you WANT to own yourself, there is a rational foundation behind self-ownership: it works, in encourages people to produce and cooperate, it is precisely compatible with the natural principles of evolution. But childlessness doesn't work - that's called extinction!
You own your life, but willful failure to contribute to human reproduction is an act of aggression against the broader system of life of which you are a part.
That's awful! Like I said - you own your life. You just can't initiate aggression against others, which includes aggression against the mechanisms of life itself.
And the last thing we want is for people to reproduce at maximum capacity (do the exponential math), which would be an economic disaster and inevitably lead to the suffering and death of tens of billions (at least).
But no one wants to reproduce at their maximum capacity when given the freedom of choice. Birth rates are declining all over the world, which will soon be a major economic problem, like it already is in places like Japan...
What is a "positive fertility rate"? |
I still notice that you don't explain the "economic and cultural collapse" thing. |
So, because they chose to reproduce, I have a duty to? Why? |
Nonsense. There is no such responsibility. |
[...] who is the person I am aggressing against. |
"Aggression against the mechanisms of life itself." There are no "mechanisms of life" I am aggressing against, and aggression is only wrong if it violates rights, and "mechanisms of life itself" have no rights. |
How many kids a woman must have to keep the population stable. With modern first-world infant mortality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality) and other death rates, I'd say 2.15 children per functional vagina on average ought to do it.
Declining population means some productivity gains are wasted on the necessity of the economy making do with fewer people, and if productivity doesn't increase fast enough then we have economic contraction and an actual decline in standards of living: work more hours, make less, be able to afford less stuff.
I've already explained why. For the same reason why you have individual rights: the functional reality of human nature. Reproduction is a self-evident evolutionary advantage. You may not like the answer, but c'est la vie, you can't blame the universe for 2 plus 2 adding up to 4, it just does.
Yes there is. You are responsible for the harm you do to others: murder, theft, wrongful imprisonment, property damage (like pollution), or demographic damage. A crime that harms everyone a tiny bit is still a crime.
You are not responsible for working for society: presuming you don't initiate aggression then what you do for money is your own damn business. You are not responsible for spending money on anything but your pleasure (once again, within the context of the non-aggression principle) - read Ayn Rand. There is just one exception that Objectivist / Libertarian / Anarcho-Capitalist philosophers failed to understand - when it comes to reproduction, your life is not entirely your own.
Image you're driving a car at high speed and suddenly you close your eyes and let go of the wheel - you crash into somebody's house causing property damage and physical as well as mental injuries. The consequences of this crime are very direct: there's one criminal and a finite quantity of people in that house who are victims. When you willfully refuse to reproduce, on the other hand, the consequences are delayed. You benefit from the fact that your ancestors didn't fail to reproduce, but you don't pass that debt to the next generation.
Imagine you are a due-paying member of a club of people that has a couple billion members (not sure how many people willfully have less than two children, but that detail doesn't matter). What this club does is release a virus into the earth's atmosphere that quickly infects every human being, regardless of whether they were members of that club or not. That virus doesn't do anything for decades, but then it gradually starts to have a negative economic effect each person infected (which is everyone), same as a declining population has a negative effect. Is that not a crime?
I am hereby saying that they do, and I am basing that argument on the same rational basis as individual human rights.
Fuck no. Next? |
What, you're going to prevent me from voluntarily donating to an orphanage or an adoption charity, believing that it is my obligation to do so (contrary to my rejection of other forms of altruism), and encouraging others to do the same?
What, you're going to prevent me from voluntarily donating to an orphanage or an adoption charity, believing that it is my obligation to do so (contrary to my rejection of other forms of altruism), and encouraging others to do the same?
Just as more mouths to feed means more hands to feed them, surely fewer hands to feed mouths means fewer mouths to feed. It balances out. |
This still doesn't explain why I have an enforcable duty to have kids. It is for the good of the human race that some people reproduce, sure, but (a) why does that mean that that somebody should be me, and (b) I scarcely benefit from that anyway. |
Define "harm." |
Only presuming we have a duty to reproduce at a certain rate that can be enforced. |
But that is precisely what is in question: There is no such duty. It may be charitable of me to reproduce 2.2 times in order to help ensure the survival of the species, but forcing me to violates my ownership of my body, which is an injustice. |
If I don't reproduce, on the other hand, nobody's rights are violated. |
It might not be nice for the people who would otherwise have existed that they are not going to now, but then they woon't suffer from that because, hey, they don't exist. |
You claim that I benefitted from my parent's decision not to reproduce. But I didn't. There is no possible point of comparison: If they didn't, then I wouldn't have existed. How could that be a better or worse alternative? It can't be. |
Then you say that because I benefitted I incur some sort of a debt. Why? Benefitting somebody does not automatically mean that they owe you something for it. |
I benefit somebody everytime I deoderise before riding a crowded subway train. [...] |
And that brings us on to the third point, you say that I should pass this debt on to the third generation. Why? In what way is my having kids a payment of the debt I supposedly owe my parents for their giving birth to me? |
Is what not a crime? Causing a negative economic effect? Or infecting people with a virus? Infecting unconsenting people with a virus is the crime. Causing a negative economic effect is not. |
[...] So a better analogy would be this: If fifty million Americans decide that they would be happy to take a pay cut in exchange for an extra day's weekend, the result would be similar to what you are warning about reproduction: A negative economic impact on everybody. Now your argument is that these people should be punished in such a way as to give them an incentive to lose that extra day's weekend and work. But this amounts to forced labour and is a violation of forced labour. |
Assuming that people only have rights insofar as they contribute to human evolution. But that is not a very sound basis for rights. |
That's fine. Just don't encourage the use of violence and agression against peaceful people who refuse to do likewise. |
Taxes = not voluntary. |
Taxes = not voluntary.
You're using a bad dictionary. Even Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax) uses the term "a state or the functional equivalent of a state". There is such a thing as a "natural tax", like I always say that the natural tax on property is the cost of proving that you own it and defending it. A voluntary organization can tax as well: a church might require that you pay tithing, a neighborhood association will have dues, a club will have a membership fee, and so on.
I'm not having babies, and I'm not paying for other people to have babies. |
This is no different than a communist who refuses to recognize property rights.
My insistence on my property rights and refusal to hand over property to people who are doing something I have no particular desire to encourage is the same as a communist who refuses to recognize property rights? |
Maybe in some other dimension, but not this one. |
Your "negative" rights to your body and your property does not trump the few "positive" rights of everyone else that do exist, and the existence of those "positive" rights is evidenced by their necessity.
Maybe in some other dimension it is possible for the human civilization to exist without reproduction, but in this one it isn't. At least not yet.
This is something a rational minarchist might advocate to solve the one fatal flaw of secular libertarianism: inevitable cultural and/or economic collapse due to very low birth rates.
Here's how it would work: each person is responsible for fathering / birthing and raising two children (unless you have a good medical excuse of course, but being gay ain't it). If you fail to have your first child by 30 and second child by 40, you pay a hefty tax until you do. The money would be used to care for orphans, expand free / "open source" educational resources for children, and help poor people with lots of kids. It can be facilitated like Islamic taxation: forced through violence, but you can pay it to any valid cause, avoiding centralized government: reputable charities / orphanages or directly to people who have / adopt lots of kids, and so on.
Brace yourselves. If by mind can conceive of such evil, so can others.
And start having babies! I mean it!
And I'm totally going to impose this on myself when I turn 30.
You have not remotely demonstrated that there is any such thing as a positive right of someone to my money for the purpose of bearing and raising children. |
If you're just going to continue to fling out non sequiters, I'm done talking to you. |
Well, it is in effect already although not directly. I mean people with kids get tax deductions, and people without, don't. So the point is mute. |
Your failure to understand the economic significance of declining birth rates is not my problem.
Even when I stop being "33% more Richarded" than R3? ;)
Your inability to support the foundational claim of your argument is not my problem. |
[...] I'm done talking to you about this stupid topic. |
open immigration [...] |
[...] polyamory [...] |
If human civilization is to survive, human beings must be forced to pull their own economic weight.
By any means necessary.
This problem isn't national, in fact the United States is faring better than just about any other first world nation. (Except Israel, if you can call it that, and them oily emirates.) Aging Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan) would need to import almost a billion people (http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/overall.htm) (no, that's not a typo) to keep the same worker-to-retiree ratio! :shock:
And, like I said've above, you can't import people from outside this planet - there just aren't any. Fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate) are declining everywhere: Mexico is down to 2.37 kids per woman (and you need more than 2.15 there to break even due to higher mortality), Muslim Turkey is down to 1.87, Iran down to 1.71, etc.
I support that, and I've always stated that less government intervention in family life would cause the birth rates to increase. There's a certain psychological value of being a king of one's castle that encourages people to have children and more children, while having social workers poke around and second-guess your authority diminishes that. But that may not be enough. As the world becomes more secular and more urban, birth rates will be in free fall.
It's a huge problem, and people who understand it are thinking "it's a huge problem, but let someone else take care of it". Thus the unfortunate need for government violence that I am here trying to minimize.
This problem isn't national, in fact the United States is faring better than just about any other first world nation. (Except Israel, if you can call it that, and them oily emirates.) Aging Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan) would need to import almost a billion people (http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/overall.htm) (no, that's not a typo) to keep the same worker-to-retiree ratio! :shock:
And, like I said've above, you can't import people from outside this planet - there just aren't any. Fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate) are declining everywhere: Mexico is down to 2.37 kids per woman (and you need more than 2.15 there to break even due to higher mortality), Muslim Turkey is down to 1.87, Iran down to 1.71, etc.
I support that, and I've always stated that less government intervention in family life would cause the birth rates to increase. There's a certain psychological value of being a king of one's castle that encourages people to have children and more children, while having social workers poke around and second-guess your authority diminishes that. But that may not be enough. As the world becomes more secular and more urban, birth rates will be in free fall.
It's a huge problem, and people who understand it are thinking "it's a huge problem, but let someone else take care of it". Thus the unfortunate need for government violence that I am here trying to minimize.
We can move to New Hampshire and secede. Then open up immigration. There are many that would come if aloud (and possibly funded). Some Asian countries have many unwanted girls. We could take them, and they would eventually benefit us.
This problem isn't national, in fact the United States is faring better than just about any other first world nation. (Except Israel, if you can call it that, and them oily emirates.) Aging Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan) would need to import almost a billion people (http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/overall.htm) (no, that's not a typo) to keep the same worker-to-retiree ratio! :shock:
And, like I said've above, you can't import people from outside this planet - there just aren't any. Fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate) are declining everywhere: Mexico is down to 2.37 kids per woman (and you need more than 2.15 there to break even due to higher mortality), Muslim Turkey is down to 1.87, Iran down to 1.71, etc.
I support that, and I've always stated that less government intervention in family life would cause the birth rates to increase. There's a certain psychological value of being a king of one's castle that encourages people to have children and more children, while having social workers poke around and second-guess your authority diminishes that. But that may not be enough. As the world becomes more secular and more urban, birth rates will be in free fall.
It's a huge problem, and people who understand it are thinking "it's a huge problem, but let someone else take care of it". Thus the unfortunate need for government violence that I am here trying to minimize.
We can move to New Hampshire and secede. Then open up immigration. There are many that would come if aloud (and possibly funded). Some Asian countries have many unwanted girls. We could take them, and they would eventually benefit us.
I think they could immediately benefit us... :mrgreen:
Not mute, it is an actionable idea for a Minarchist government program to take away state altruism without taking away its natalist effect (and possibly increase / decrease it depending on current birth rate statistics). We're talking about a tax that would only apply to individuals who have / adopt less than 2 children, only after a certain age, and only if the national birth rate is too low. And that tax can be paid to a reputable orphanage / charity of your choice. Isn't that an improvement over the current system?
(A) I didn't say you have to have kids yourself, I've said you have a moral obligation to contribute to the next generation. You can pay others to fulfill this obligation for you.
(B) You don't benefit from repaying debts, you've benefited from debts when you acquired them, which in this case was when you were born.
Damage or injury. In this context we are talking about an unnatural action that causes damage or injury to the rights of other entity or entities that possess natural rights. In this case "unnatural" means: contrary to the reality of being prior to your intervention.
If I didn't have a shotgun wound in my head and your actions caused me to have one, then you have violated my right to life, even if your shotgun went off by accident. If a million people didn't have pollution in the water on their property and you put it there, then you've violated their right to property, even if it was through inaction, like failing to re-enforce storage containers containing nuclear waste that deteriorated over time. Etc.
Reproduction is a fundamental part of human nature, and your existence is a consequence of millions of your ancestors who've acted on this nature. Your unnatural failure to perpetuate this cycle of life causes economic damage that grows over time. It is comparable to hiding a robot somewhere underground that is programmed to activate sometime in the future, dig itself out, and release a virus or otherwise do light economic damage to a large quantity of people.
Look at history. You will see this duty encouraged (and at times violently enforced, but that's really not necessary) through cultural values in Christianity, Confucianism, and other cultures that have stood the test of time. And you will see the failure to enforce those values in cultures that have collapsed. The same argument that backs the triumph of capitalism over socialism also backs the triumph of rational natalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalism) - a culture that discourages willful failure to reproduce.
Imagine a socialist saying: "Property rights do not exist. It may be charitable for me to respect your property if I like the way you manage it, but forcing me violates my right to access the same property, which is an injustice." :roll:
You can't make an effective argument by just stating your opinion, you have to demonstrate the rightness of your argument by objective means, like through a valid experiment. Unfortunately in our case a complete experiment would have to last hundreds or even thousands of years, so we have to extrapolate from smaller observations, historical examples, and common sense. You would have to refute the following claims:
- At this time human beings are still mortal, and new human beings can still only be created through biological reproduction, which requires a particular effort, discomfort, and risk on the part of the mother. Furthermore, effective transition of newborn infants into adulthood requires a substantial commitment of time and money by someone (i.e. parent or guardian).
- Fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate) are declining in all parts of the world, currently averaging 2.61 worldwide but falling quickly. For now the biggest problem resulting from this is a demographic-economic paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox) that results in decline of average human IQ rates and other negative consequences. In the future, it will also result in the decline of the total human population.
- Declining population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline) is causing measurable economic harm in places like Russia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia), the rest of Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Europe), and Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan). Some of those harms are mitigated through import of goods, services, and immigration of people, but (unless we discover an extraterrestrial civilization) that would not be possible once world population as a whole begins to decline.
What about the "suckers" who do reproduce: they spend a huge fraction of their time and money to have children.
The vast majority of people who reproduce in the first world do so out of a sense of obligation that you do not share.
Most of this ideology is religious and is in decline, along with the birth rates. And survival of everyone does depend on people continuing to have children. You were born, and so was everyone you've ever done business with, directly or indirectly.
Willful failure to reproduce is harming the human species as a whole.
I know this sounds like an appeal to altruism, but it isn't - altruism is economically harmful, while rational natalism is economically beneficial, perhaps even essential. I know this sounds like an appeal to collectivism, but collectivism is beneficial in some particular cases, and this is one of them.
People who don't exist don't have rights. (Duh!) I fully support the right of contraception, vasectomy, abortion, etc. But you are obligated to pull your own weight, economically and biologically. To live and to refuse to reproduce, expecting others to reproduce for you, is theft!
It is no different than a government "welfare" program that is funded through inflation: everyone experiences economic harm for the benefit of the lazy.[/b]
The wrong of inflation is not that the value of everybody's money goes down, but that everybody is forced to use the inflated currency, and that promises are made for a certain amount of gold that won't be honoured. If somebody inflated a currency nobody had to hold, then people would simply stop trying to hold assets in that currency when they saw its value decline and switch to another one. You do not have a right that people value your property at one price rather than another, so reducing the value of that property of yours which is money doesn't violate your rights.
(Gotta start dinner, will reply to the rest in a little bit.)
(I'll assume the word "not" I highlighted in red should be ignored.)
I'm sorry, but you fail to understand the very nature of human rights. Hurman beings don't have rights because we want to have rights, human beings have rights because they provide a competitive evolutionary advantage. Empirical evidence shows that a society that denies all human rights will not evolve past the hunter-gather stage of human civilization. A society that denies fewer rights has an advantage over a society that denies more rights. Etc.
Is your body odor strong enough to kill, or cause the decline of human civilization?
Your debt is not from your parents to your children, it is to the human civilization as a whole. Especially the guy you see driving a minivan full of noisy kids. You owe him.
And if you don't pay him, pretty soon guys like him will stop having kids, eventually leading to the world populated entirely by old people fighting over insufficient resources they don't have the manpower to renew.
What's the difference? (And note that I'm not talking about causing an economic collapse by publishing some information that will cause a panic, that only exposes the weaknesses and errors already inherent in some forms of speculative investment.)
Sometimes it is possible to cause harm through inaction, like in the "decaying container with nuclear waste" example I've mentioned previously. Reproduction is a unique duty that must be required or at least encouraged from all, without it civilization collapses.
No, your example doesn't compare. There is a direct incentive for people to work, and it is their right to quit working entirely and beg for bread and water if they so choose, but they don't have a right to force others to feed them. Failure to pull your own economic weight and forcing others to do it for you is called theft, but how is failure to pull your biological weight any different? It isn't.
It is THE basis for rights. Sometimes it is expressed through other words, like God or Nature, but it's really the same thing.
I said a Minarchist would advocate this as a coercive tax, and it would be an improvement over the current system that is at least intended to have a similar effect (i.e. free schools, child tax credit, etc). I'm both a Minarchist and an AnCap - the former is a stable version that can be used now, the latter is a beta-testing version with new features but not yet ready for general use. In the meantime, why let "great" be the enemy of "good"?
I did. Which of my points do you challenge?
It's not a "stupid topic", it is a powerful argument that conservatives / minarchists make in defense of the state. If everyone had as many children as Ayn Rand or Ian Freeman (presuming he doesn't rewire his plumbing back the way it was, etc) - the human race would go extinct in one generation, and its last years on earth would not be very comfortable.
Someone has to breed, and breed enough to prevent economic collapse like in Japan - what's their incentive?
We can move to New Hampshire and secede. Then open up immigration. |
Some Asian countries have many unwanted girls. |
Its a slightly smaller injustice than the present injustices. |
[...] You said I have an enforceable obligation to contribute to the next generation. [...] |
Thank you for supporting my idea! That is the greatest compliment any collectivist action ever deserved! :D
That's the difference between transitional Minarchism and perfect Anarcho-Capitalism. The former is an improvement on the current system and presents ideas that can be applied today. The latter is an unproven theory that I like but in reality we are very far away from. You have to crawl before you can walk before you can run. (Yes, I'm trying to "have my cake and eat it too" by jumping between Minarchism and AnCap arguments, but in this case I can - deal with it.)
And, once again, you're making arguments about rights while ignoring the nature of rights. Those arguments are irrelevant. The survival of the species comes first.
(I gotta go - will finish replying later.)
...
I'm a very big fan of South Asian girls, but it takes at very least $10,000 a year to raise a child (including education). I don't think this problem can be solved by a few rich guys taking on some third world wives.
...
I see what Alex is pushing for here. He wants a larger population of children to chose to abuse from. Maybe, just maybe with all these new children running around he can find that magical one that does not mind the abuse.
[...] I said that your argument is that because somebody has provided me with a benefit, life, I have a debt to them. [...] |
Well, it is plain that my neither having kids nor contributing to anybody else doing so does not damage the rights of anybody else. Your person and property remain as intact as ever. |
[...] Failing to reinforce containers of nuclear waste allows decomposing atomic molecules to enter your property, or increases the risk of their doing so. Not having a kid, or not contributing to others having kids, doesn't. |
Thrity percent of the population deciding to take an extra day's weakened cause economic damage without violating anybody else's property, and so does failure to have kids. |
I see a bunch of people who believe we have an enforcable duty to reproduce. I don't see why your telling me that they believed this to be the case is supposed to prove that their belief is correct. |
Especially when it comes from ridiculous premises such as "a big, all powerful invisible dude said 'go forth and multiply,' so that is why we have a moral duty too." |
[...] Maybe true. |
What is all the above supposed to show? |
[...] I didn't force them, or even ask them to. Same goes for other people having kids. |
Bollocks, they had kids because they liked the idea of having a family with somebody they loved. |
No it isn't. Forcing them to reproduce is theft, or forced labour. |
The wrong of inflation is not that the value of everybody's money goes down, but that everybody is forced to use the inflated currency [...] |
This would have been relevant if I had advocated the parents' right to force their child to work for their benefit, and even to "tax" their children's income well into adulthood. That would be a less collectivist remedy to the population crisis, but still coercive (even more so, since you don't choose your parents) and probably far less effective. One of the reasons why I'm not making that argument is because having children would still not be an objective benefit and not always make sense financially even if they are a financial asset - it's not a business venture, it is an obligation.
No, I am injured through your inaction, and so is every member of the human race. If you have a right not to reproduce (and to not pay for others who must pull your demographic weight for you), so does everyone else - then civilization fails.
Your concept of rights exists in the context of human civilization, which cannot exist without sufficient reproduction - rights have no validity outside that context. Your willful failure to pull your demographic weight (and fulfill your natural biological imperative) constitutes a crime.
You don't have the right to damage the property of others through inaction, thus you have an obligation to take action to prevent that. If you fail in this obligation, and I have evidence that something on your property will very likely go boom and cause damage to my property, even possibly kill me, your rights to your property must yield. Your failure to have kids is exactly the same.
Even if 90% of the population decides to only work 1 day per week, it does not constitute a threat to human civilization. There will be severe economic decline, sure, but the natural system of incentives remains in place - the lazy will suffer from their refusal to work, the 10% that continues to work will come out on top, and this stupidity will eventually be phased out as more and more people see the wisdom of working more. A planetary decline in birth rates, like is already happening in Japan, does in fact constitute a clear and imminent global threat, necessitating use of violence to stop it.
Because that belief is a necessity for survival. If all irrational and coercive pressures went away, what would human fertility be like? Less than in Japan or Singapore, clearly, because that pressure is still very strong there. We're talking about less than 0.5 children per living person. (Comparable to Ian & Julia not having kids, and Mark and his wife stopping at one.) The population pyramid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_pyramid) in that scenario is terrifying: more people over 70 than under 50!
Robots can't do everything. Productivity will decline. Prices will skyrocket, as will crime. Richer but older nations will not be able to defend themselves militarily from poorer but younger nations. Old people who can no longer afford to buy medication or even food will demand a government solution, but there will simply be no one left to tax.
[...] Possibly also true.
Why "maybe" / "possibly"? Do you disagree with the cause-and-effect relationship of declining birth rates and the consequences I've mentioned,
or do you believe that birth rates will correct themselves without coercion? If the former, please explain why. If the latter - I too wish that was possible, but how?
Drastic reversal of those kinds of trends don't happen just by themselves randomly. If you have a particular theory on what would reverse them, I would gladly agree that the need for coercion is not justified based on the merits of that theory. Coercion should only be used as a last resort.
Justified use of force.
You're still thinking in terms of negative rights. This is an issue of positive rights, which require an obligation of others. Just because 99% of positive rights you hear about are socialist bullshit doesn't mean the other 1% is not valid and essential. They are based on the same rational foundation as the negative right of self-ownership (life, liberty, property).
For example, you didn't ask for my plane to malfunction and crash on your property, but it was an accident. You have an obligation to facilitate my right to free exit, even if that infringes on your right to your property for a little while.
Failure to do so would constitute wrongful imprisonment.
Air travel would be downright impossible if making an emergency landing or parachuting meant you could become the slave of whoever owns the property you land on.
You didn't ask some retard to rob a convenience store, killing the clerk and leaving you as the only witness, yet you have an obligation to appear at his trial,
which would probably take up quite a bit of your time. Without the ability to subpoena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/subpoena) people to court, coercively if necessary, no justice system would be possible,
even one that is decentralized and entirely based on fundamental natural rights.
People's motivations to have children are complicated and affected by their subconscious, so we can never know for sure what fraction recognize it as an obligation, but some do. More people will recognize this fact if more people study basic population economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_economics), and if they also study game theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) they will see the need for coersion to get people to reproduce, and if they also study philosophy they will see that it is moral to do so.
You want the cost of raising children to be individual, but the economic benefit to be shared, as it naturally is - that's theft.
Having children is the only economic activity this applies to: you may be able to avoid other shared economic benefits by living in isolation, but the only way to stop benefiting from the fact that you were born into the human race is suicide.
Like I already said, your failure to recognize the obligation to reproduce is no different from failure to recognize property rights. Imagine that you suffer some sort of an accident that requires you to pay $20,000 a year in medical bills: is someone else obligated to pay those bills for you?
It wasn't your choice to suffer this accident, but it is a reality you have to deal with in order to live. Same is the reality of human reproduction. You are a human being. You were born. You are naturally indebted to reproduce.
If you willfully refuse then everybody suffers, same as if you were forcing them to pay for you medical bills through inflation or taxes.
Quote
Force can be natural or artificial. You are a part of the human race. Is that force?
Huh?
[...] I shall drop this argument, anyway, since I have already established that benefitting is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish a debt to the person providing a benefit. |
This presumes that evolution is a moral goal, that, when asking what would be the right, or good thing for me to do, I should ask what furthers or is inaccordance with human evolution. I can't see why evolution is good in itself, or why it trumps other concerns, especially self-interest. Libertarian rights as being mutually advantageous, as argued for by eg Jan Narveson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Narveson), does reconcile this. |
Ah, so now it is not that I have beneffited from other's choice to bring me into existence that creates this supposed debt, but that I have benefitted in a certain way or to a certain degree? |
|
Nonsense. I am aware that welfare queens may have kids only because people are paying them to, but I doubt that most people do this, and, besides, it has created children that are unsustainable, anyway. Most people have kids because they want to have kids, not because somebody is paying them to. |
The difference is that in one case a negative economic effect was caused by violating rights, whilst in the other case a negative economic effect was not cause by violating rights, but by excercising or choosing not to excercise one's own rights. |
Because "failure to pull your biological weight" doesn't involve forcing others to do so. Somebody who chooses not to have kids is not forcing other people to do so. |
I can't see why people should only have rights if their having that right contributes to human evolution, sorry. |
Because you are not advocating a means to provide particular services the state supplies, and which we would want it to continue providing in a transition to anarcho-capitalism. You are advocating a means of forcing people to either have kids or provide for other people to have kids. There are plenty of other ways to get the "good."
This problem isn't national, in fact the United States is faring better than just about any other first world nation. (Except Israel, if you can call it that, and them oily emirates.) Aging Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan) would need to import almost a billion people (http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/overall.htm) (no, that's not a typo) to keep the same worker-to-retiree ratio! :shock:
And, like I said've above, you can't import people from outside this planet - there just aren't any. Fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate) are declining everywhere: Mexico is down to 2.37 kids per woman (and you need more than 2.15 there to break even due to higher mortality), Muslim Turkey is down to 1.87, Iran down to 1.71, etc.
I support that, and I've always stated that less government intervention in family life would cause the birth rates to increase. There's a certain psychological value of being a king of one's castle that encourages people to have children and more children, while having social workers poke around and second-guess your authority diminishes that. But that may not be enough. As the world becomes more secular and more urban, birth rates will be in free fall.
It's a huge problem, and people who understand it are thinking "it's a huge problem, but let someone else take care of it". Thus the unfortunate need for government violence that I am here trying to minimize.
We can move to New Hampshire and secede. Then open up immigration. There are many that would come if aloud (and possibly funded). Some Asian countries have many unwanted girls. We could take them, and they would eventually benefit us.
I think they could immediately benefit us... :mrgreen:
...
I'm a very big fan of South Asian girls, but it takes at very least $10,000 a year to raise a child (including education). I don't think this problem can be solved by a few rich guys taking on some third world wives.
...
But the idea that everybody will have as many kids as Rand or Ian is not remotely plausible. |
That somebody has to breed for the human race to continue is not what is being denied. What is being denied as that this gives anybody a right to take my property off me if I choose not to breed, or contribute to those breeding. |
Well, I suspect that a voucher system may be a good transitional method between full state schooling and free-market schooling, but that doesn't mean that I am going to argue that justice requires that people pay taxes to fund the school vouchers. |
I'm not sure that mere survival is normatively attractive. What is great about merely surviving? The reason to live cannot be to live. |
[...] it takes at very least $10,000 a year to raise a child (including education) [...]substantiate your claim without using ANY gooberment lies... |
I see what Alex is pushing for here. He wants a larger population of children to chose to abuse from. Maybe, just maybe with all these new children running around he can find that magical one that does not mind the abuse. |
everyone else seems to be against his eugenics / Invisible Social contract |
The pregnancy was unexpected, and for one 32-year-old single mother in Syracuse, New York, the ailing economy became a factor in her decision to have an abortion.
"More so now that we are in a recession ... I felt I had to go through with the procedure because I cannot afford another child," said the woman, a registered nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity.
With a recession on, she was worried about job security.
"People say, 'You're a nurse, you'll always have a job.' I think it's not as true as people think it is."
The recession may be a factor influencing more Americans to opt out of parenthood with abortions and vasectomies, although there is no data available yet to suggest a trend.
Even so, there is some anecdotal evidence that would-be parents are factoring the rough economic times into the most personal of reproductive choices, some experts said.
In 2005, the last year for which data is available, the U.S. abortion rate fell to the lowest level since 1974, according to the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.
But at the National Abortion Federation, a hotline for women seeking abortion information has been "ringing off the hook," according to the group's president, Vicki Saporta.
"We are currently getting more calls from women who report that they or their partner have recently lost their job, and we are also hearing from more women facing eviction," she said.
One recent inquiry came from a 24-year-old married woman in Colorado who was evicted after her landlord went into foreclosure. Another came from a 32-year-old pregnant mother in Virginia who had lost her job and health insurance.
"As more and more women and families are struggling due to the crisis, it's affecting more than just low-income families. Now more middle-class and working class families are facing the types problems that we've heard from low-income women," Saporta said.
As with many other nonprofits, abortion assistance groups are being inundated with requests for aid just as funding is drying up.
In the first quarter of 2009, the New York Abortion Access Fund increased funding for abortions 60 percent from year-ago levels, and the number of women receiving assistance more than doubled.
The reach of the recession may stretch beyond women's reproductive decisions to those of men.
Lawrence Ross, a urologist and former president of the American Urological Association, said he and his colleagues have noticed a roughly 50 percent increase in vasectomies in the past four to six months, which he attributes in part to the ailing economy.
About half a million men opt for vasectomies in the United States each year, a number which has remained flat over the years, Ross said.
"Many of them are afraid that they are going to lose their jobs and their health insurance. So while they are covered, a lot more patients, it pushed them over the edge to get it done more quickly," he said.
"A lot of them are saying that we've decided to limit our family, the costs of education and raising kids is so high."
At the same time, urologists have seen a drop in the number of men seeking vasectomy reversals.
While a vasectomy is a relatively simple procedure and typically costs between $1,000 to $1,500, a reversal costs roughly ten times as much.
Statistics before the "economic crisis" showed USA sitting on the very fence between neutral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#Replacement_rates) and negative fertility rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility), and now a negative feedback cycle is about to kick in...
From Reuters via Yahoo News -- Recession linked to more abortions, vasectomies (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090422/hl_nm/us_usa_economy_births) --QuoteThe pregnancy was unexpected, and for one 32-year-old single mother in Syracuse, New York, the ailing economy became a factor in her decision to have an abortion.
"More so now that we are in a recession ... I felt I had to go through with the procedure because I cannot afford another child," said the woman, a registered nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity.
With a recession on, she was worried about job security.
"People say, 'You're a nurse, you'll always have a job.' I think it's not as true as people think it is."
The recession may be a factor influencing more Americans to opt out of parenthood with abortions and vasectomies, although there is no data available yet to suggest a trend.
Even so, there is some anecdotal evidence that would-be parents are factoring the rough economic times into the most personal of reproductive choices, some experts said.
In 2005, the last year for which data is available, the U.S. abortion rate fell to the lowest level since 1974, according to the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.
But at the National Abortion Federation, a hotline for women seeking abortion information has been "ringing off the hook," according to the group's president, Vicki Saporta.
"We are currently getting more calls from women who report that they or their partner have recently lost their job, and we are also hearing from more women facing eviction," she said.
One recent inquiry came from a 24-year-old married woman in Colorado who was evicted after her landlord went into foreclosure. Another came from a 32-year-old pregnant mother in Virginia who had lost her job and health insurance.
"As more and more women and families are struggling due to the crisis, it's affecting more than just low-income families. Now more middle-class and working class families are facing the types problems that we've heard from low-income women," Saporta said.
As with many other nonprofits, abortion assistance groups are being inundated with requests for aid just as funding is drying up.
In the first quarter of 2009, the New York Abortion Access Fund increased funding for abortions 60 percent from year-ago levels, and the number of women receiving assistance more than doubled.
The reach of the recession may stretch beyond women's reproductive decisions to those of men.
Lawrence Ross, a urologist and former president of the American Urological Association, said he and his colleagues have noticed a roughly 50 percent increase in vasectomies in the past four to six months, which he attributes in part to the ailing economy.
About half a million men opt for vasectomies in the United States each year, a number which has remained flat over the years, Ross said.
"Many of them are afraid that they are going to lose their jobs and their health insurance. So while they are covered, a lot more patients, it pushed them over the edge to get it done more quickly," he said.
"A lot of them are saying that we've decided to limit our family, the costs of education and raising kids is so high."
At the same time, urologists have seen a drop in the number of men seeking vasectomy reversals.
While a vasectomy is a relatively simple procedure and typically costs between $1,000 to $1,500, a reversal costs roughly ten times as much.
This is something a rational minarchist might advocate to solve the one fatal flaw of secular libertarianism: inevitable cultural and/or economic collapse due to very low birth rates.
Here's how it would work: each person is responsible for fathering / birthing and raising two children (unless you have a good medical excuse of course, but being gay ain't it). If you fail to have your first child by 30 and second child by 40, you pay a hefty tax until you do. The money would be used to care for orphans, expand free / "open source" educational resources for children, and help poor people with lots of kids. It can be facilitated like Islamic taxation: forced through violence, but you can pay it to any valid cause, avoiding centralized government: reputable charities / orphanages or directly to people who have / adopt lots of kids, and so on.
Brace yourselves. If by mind can conceive of such evil, so can others.
And start having babies! I mean it!
And I'm totally going to impose this on myself when I turn 30.
Because no one is forcing / brainwashing them to do it.
If birth rates are going down it's for a damned good reason. [...] |
Can't people just have kids that want them? |
The free market just doesn't work when it comes to reproduction because there is no reward for accomplishment, as there is with any other beneficial economic activity. Thus, if we want to survive and prosper, we need an iron fist.
I'm not a statist, and I'm not in anyone's way. I am simply pointing out basic economic reality here. Don't shoot the messenger. I know life would be easier if 2 + 2 didn't have to add up to 4 sometimes, but it still does.
I'm not a statist, and I'm not in anyone's way. I am simply pointing out basic economic reality here. Don't shoot the messenger. I know life would be easier if 2 + 2 didn't have to add up to 4 sometimes, but it still does.
Pal, you're not a messenger bringing the word of some 21st century version of "new math" to the ignorant masses, you're advocating using the full force of government to herd people into a rigged game of poker. Do you work in the divorce industry or just get off using kids to control others? Gotta hand it you you, you've taken "...for the children" to an entirely new and twisted level.
I'm not a statist, and I'm not in anyone's way. I am simply pointing out basic economic reality here. Don't shoot the messenger. I know life would be easier if 2 + 2 didn't have to add up to 4 sometimes, but it still does.
Pal, you're not a messenger bringing the word of some 21st century version of "new math" to the ignorant masses, you're advocating using the full force of government to herd people into a rigged game of poker. Do you work in the divorce industry or just get off using kids to control others? Gotta hand it you you, you've taken "...for the children" to an entirely new and twisted level.
Where do I advocate increasing government force? I advocate decreasing it, and I propose specific ideas for doing just that: decentralized and possibly enforceable through culture alone (i.e. mere ostracism of people who don't pull their demographic weight and don't pay their "childless tax" to a reputable charity).
And I never said it's for the benefit of children who wouldn't otherwise be born, it's for the benefit of the human race as a whole. Demographic collapse is like hyperinflation: it hurts everyone.
I don't think it is accurate to call a charitable donation a tax. You don't hear charity workers say "would you care to pay a tax, sir?" Now, you have, in the course of this discussion, defended what is less ambiguously a tax - a coerced transfer of income or property from anybody who has failed to have more than a pre-established number of children. |
On your "gradualism" argument. Gradualism is all well and good, and I am not throwing it out and saying that anything we get tomorrow that is not anarchism should be rejected. However, the gradual abolition of the state implies the gradual removal of the powers and functions a government has. Here, whilst you may also be defending the removal of some powers of functions that the government has, you are also advocating adding some to them. That is not the same as gradualism. |
True. But it doesn't hurt everyone by violating their rights, and preventing people being hurt in this way may violate rights. |
I don't think it is accurate to call a charitable donation a tax. You don't hear charity workers say "would you care to pay a tax, sir?" Now, you have, in the course of this discussion, defended what is less ambiguously a tax - a coerced transfer of income or property from anybody who has failed to have more than a pre-established number of children.
I don't want to sugarcoat anything, so I wanted to use the harshest terms that are applicable. I believe this is one of the ways Minarchist government thugs should distinguish themselves from other types of government thugs. Maybe I should have gone one step further and called it "coercive redistribution of wealth from non-breeders to breeders", but that's a mouthful.
The word "tax" has been used in regard to some "religious duties" (zakat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat), khums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khums), huqúqu'lláh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huqúqu'lláh), etc) that are not strictly enforced the way socialist taxes are, but are nonetheless strongly encouraged through social pressure. Even in those flexible circumstances, poor people still often initiate aggression against rich people who don't "pay their fair share". Religious institutions don't openly encourage this violence, but are still like, "see, this is what happens to greedy people". :x
On your "gradualism" argument. Gradualism is all well and good, and I am not throwing it out and saying that anything we get tomorrow that is not anarchism should be rejected. However, the gradual abolition of the state implies the gradual removal of the powers and functions a government has. Here, whilst you may also be defending the removal of some powers of functions that the government has, you are also advocating adding some to them. That is not the same as gradualism.
True. But it doesn't hurt everyone by violating their rights, and preventing people being hurt in this way may violate rights.
Once again, in order to logically prove that human beings have rights, you have to base your argument on nature, that is evolution,
and the very same framework also imposes natural obligations (i.e. "positive rights").
The right to liberty creates the obligation not to interfere in the system that enables mutual liberty - do not enslave others, do not brainwash your dependents (i.e. children) so as to prevent them from being emancipated from you, do let a harmless lost hiker leave your property unharmed (positive right to free exit), do follow reasonable guidelines with people who owe you restitution (indentured servants?), etc.
The right to property creates the obligation not to interfere in the system that enables mutual property rights - do not steal from others, do not destroy the property of others, do provide the information to prove how you got your property and what its boundaries are, do not secretly bury nuclear waste that may hurt someone someday, do not bare false witness during property disputes, etc.
And the right to life creates the obligation not to interfere with the system that enables mutual human life - do not kill, do defend yourself if someone is trying to kill you against your will, and do not interfere with your biological imperative to reproduce.
Sure, many churches have tithes. But I think most people would not call tithes taxes, or taxes tithes. |
Of course, Bush, Obama and Brown also argued that bank bailout keep the economy from collapse. This would mean, then, if they were correct, that the bailouts, in your view, are justified. |
Other things you say are interesting, but I still don't see an explaination as to why what you are proposing is not adding a new power to the government rather than being a scheme for the gradual abolition of government. Until you do that, you can frame this as being part of a policy of gradualism. |
Why? I would say I certainly wouldn't, because I would run the risk of committing the naturalistic fallacy. |
I would, instead, take a different tact, arguing that libertarian rights are mutually advantageous, or that they capture important intuitions that people hold. |
This is an error already, since not all moral obligations correlate need to rights, so even if it is true that the needs of evolution (which is not a good, per se) generate obligations, it doesn't follow that it generates rights. |
Everything here made sense, except this "do not interfere with your biological imperative to reproduce." If I were to interfere in all the other things you mention, like the means by which people protect their property, I would violate their rights. But interfering in my own biological imperative to reproduce seems to be violating my own rights. But that makes no sense! |
This is one of the silliest things I've ever heard. People without children pay property taxes (which mostly fund schools) and pay much more in income taxes than people with children. So they already pay more taxes even though they use far less government services.
This is something a rational minarchist might advocate to solve the one fatal flaw of secular libertarianism: inevitable cultural and/or economic collapse due to very low birth rates.
Here's how it would work: each person is responsible for fathering / birthing and raising two children (unless you have a good medical excuse of course, but being gay ain't it). If you fail to have your first child by 30 and second child by 40, you pay a hefty tax until you do. The money would be used to care for orphans, expand free / "open source" educational resources for children, and help poor people with lots of kids. It can be facilitated like Islamic taxation: forced through violence, but you can pay it to any valid cause, avoiding centralized government: reputable charities / orphanages or directly to people who have / adopt lots of kids, and so on.
Brace yourselves. If by mind can conceive of such evil, so can others.
And start having babies! I mean it!
And I'm totally going to impose this on myself when I turn 30.
... here's what you append to all your forum posts if you want every person viewing them to hammer maqs.com for ~8MB of bandwidth: |
Firstly, civilisation would only fail if everybody exercises this right. But that is not plausible. |
Secondly, whether or not you are injured by my inaction is irrelevent: [...] |
[...] But that doesn't mean that taking an extra day's weekend is a crime, or a rights violation, because you have no right that people work when they have not agreed to. |
Food production is necessary for survival. Self-owners may well decide not to produce any more food. Civilisation would collapse, and humanity die out. Does that mean that it would be OK to force people to work on plantations? |
Yes, all these terrible things could happen. But that still doesn't alter the fact that forcing people to have kids, or provide for those that are having them, is a violation of their rights. |
People have kids now without having to be coerced into it. |
There are no positive rights. |
They are inherently contradictory, generating incompossibility problems, both with negative rights, and with each other. |
They also can only exist at a given time and under given circumstances, and so cannot be considered human rights, as they cannot exist at all times and places that humans can exist. |
No. Actively preventing you from leaving would constitute false imprisonment. Failure to help you leave wouldn't. |
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A legal system that forces people to turn up in court is not based on fundamental natural rights, but on violating them. You will find precisely this issue discussed in Rothbard's For a New Liberty. |
Libertarians do not need to know the alternative solutions to every "problem" that the statists claim to solve for two simple reasons.
1) The statists do not have those answers either
2) More proplems are caused by statists than they would have us believe they are curing
In a free society, statements like this would have very serious consequences to your reputation. You are responsible for the harm you cause, whether it is through action or inaction. If you store tires on your property, it is your obligation to make sure they don't catch on fire and pollute your neighbors. If you promise to spot (http://www.ehow.com/how_2076253_spot-someone-bench-press.html) someone while he's bench-pressing, that creates an obligation to at least try to help and not leave that person trapped under a barbell. Etc. And there are some natural obligations you are born into, the foremost of which is to reproduce.
Nature does not dictate how many hours people should work, that is an individual decision incentivized by the reward you get in exchange for working. We have a little thing called money to make sure everyone pulls their economic weight.
Nature does dictate the realities of reproduction, there is no sufficient reward for it. That's why we need to create a means of exchange to encourage people to pull their demographic weight. Failure to do so is demographic communism, and that simply does not work - the lazy benefit from the hard work of others, the incentive to be productive declines, and so does the output.
That cannot happen - when the price of food goes high enough, more people will be willing to produce it.
Could? Given the current trend, what would prevent them?
And the arguments you are making are identical to the arguments of the people who fail to recognize property rights. "Boo hoo hoo, forcing us to work for our money and pay for stuff is theft." They fail to understand the incentives behind economic production, and you fail to understand the incentives behind biological reproduction.
Only if you base your understanding of rights on wishful thinking rather than reality.
Failure to comply with your wishful thinking is not a contradiction. Failure to comply with the reality of nature is.
Says who? Just because a certain circumstance isn't perpetual doesn't mean it isn't a part of human nature. Emergencies (http://www.google.com/search?q=ayn+rand+emergencies) happen. Things change. And don't forget that on a long enough time-line, there's no such thing as human nature. We evolve. Things that are true of us aren't true of primate ancestors, or of the primordial goo from which we ultimately originate. Absence of rights among monkeys is what made it possible for them to compete and evolve into man!
Rights are based on the collective competitive advantage that arises from cooperation - which is only true once a certain level of civilization is reached. The cavemen, who could not possibly grow enough food for everyone, did not have rights as we do today, even though they were almost identical to us genetically. If a hypothetical a super-human force were to put human feral children (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child) onto an other Earth-like planet, thus creating an isolated culture of human beings whose level of development is similar to cavemen, the reality of their existence would make rights harmful and unnatural. They'd need to figure out how to build simple tools, hunt, domesticate animals, grow food, utilize fire, and all other civilization advances from scratch, which won't happen overnight. In the meantime, every day will be a struggle for survival. They would have the opposite situation with birth rates than we're having, more children than can possibly survive, thus creating competition within the species for the limited resources available. This competition, which initially is very violent, is what drives civilization forward.
When all human beings lived in tribal "gift economies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy)" there was no need for money, but that need gradually emerged as societies became more sophisticated, and it is downright impossible to have a stable society beyond the hunter-gatherer level without explicit "property rights" and some recognized means of exchange. The same applies to post-industrialized societies and the "childless tax".
That's kind of like putting a plastic bag over someone's head and saying "you have the right to live, but not to breathe the air on my property".
That isn't to say that you'd owe me a limo ride off your property, I may have to call someone or pay for the taxi myself, but then you'd be obligated to let that taxi get to me and leave with me on board,
which is still a limitation of your property rights for the sake of my positive right to free exit.
And you could be asked to yield your property rights further by a subpoena duces tecum, so that evidence about that plane crash can be effectively gathered.
Yes, forced labor.
Which I'm in favor of in this circumstance, just like I'm in favor of a person with no money naturally being "forced" to work if no one is willing to feed him for free.
You can always choose death, but if you choose to live then you must live within the context of reality and its requirements, both individual and collective.
I'm a huge fan of Rothbard's theories, but they're just that - theories. Capitalist Minarchism is pretty much a proven fact at this point, but Anarcho-Capitalism still needs to be experimented with, and that won't happen overnight. We need to take one step at a time, conduct voluntary experiments, and adjust our theories as needed. If we fail to apply rational fallibilism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism) to our ideas, then we're hardly much better than Marxist thugs or Jihadists!
For instance - actually, I don't know if you have them in the US - but in the UK we have pelican crossings, where pressing a button sets off a timer at the end of which the lights will change colour and allowing pedestrians to cross. Anyway, if there is a crowd of people at the crossing, they all benefit if somebody presses the button, and pressing the button means going out of one's way, over to the light post, and pushing it. But free-riding doesn't happen, since it doesn't cost that much to go over and press the button.
The benefit of free-riding from other people's reproduction is so insignificant that nobody is going to do it. I mean, how much to you gain from somebody 3,000 miles away dropping a sprog? |
[...] So that, if you enjoy the sight of a well maintained yard, and your neighbour spend on maintaining his yard, but you don't pay him for doing so, you are stealing from him? |
Benefitting from people is not sufficient to claim that you have stolen from them. |
If I (and sufficient others) do not reproduce, everybody suffers. But this suffering is not cause by our violating rights [...] |
|
I'm a very big fan of South Asian girls, but it takes at very least $10,000 a year to raise a child (including education). I don't think this problem can be solved by a few rich guys taking on some third world wives.
I'm sure we could manage to do it for far less. Many of them make far less than this where they are. They would help us make do. I'm suggesting poorer countries because many of us don't have a lot as it is and it would be more workable.
(Still filling the gap with older posts.)For instance - actually, I don't know if you have them in the US - but in the UK we have pelican crossings, where pressing a button sets off a timer at the end of which the lights will change colour and allowing pedestrians to cross. Anyway, if there is a crowd of people at the crossing, they all benefit if somebody presses the button, and pressing the button means going out of one's way, over to the light post, and pushing it. But free-riding doesn't happen, since it doesn't cost that much to go over and press the button.
Yes, we have those in New Jersey, but that analogy is completely irrelevant. A better analogy would be every person has to press that button at least once or a big truck runs everyone over.
If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion, you really need to put more mental effort into this. Re-read the thread a couple of times. Do some research. You're spouting utter nonsense - which I've already addressed.
We are talking about total human population and its total economy, of which you are a part. It doesn't really matter who has the babies as much as it matter that enough babies are born and raised. If there were human beings flying back and forth to Mars, then the human birth rates on Mars would affect you too.
Yet again I have to repeat the obvious - yard maintenance does not constitute an economic emergency! You were not born through your mother mowing her lawn! No civilization in history has fallen into dark ages for lack of yard maintenance!
Then, according to you, everyone should be able to get into debt and refuse to pay it back. You are born indebted to reproduce.
As I have already explained, your concept of rights is illogical and based on nothing but wishful thinking. What you're saying is indistinguishable from "screw those suckers who planted this vegetable field, I'm going to eat from it without compensating them".
Absence of property rights discourages production. Absence of parental benefits discourages reproduction.
Huh?
Is the government forcing you to be its citizen, use its currency, and suffer the effects of inflation? The answer is yes - that constitutes artificial force, that is aggression. You should be able to choose which voluntary organizations you belong to and which currency you choose to use.
Is anyone forcing you to be a part of the human race? The answer is no. You cannot choose to be born into a different civilization on another planet somewhere! Maybe living in that other civilization would have some benefits: no need to eat, spend money on medicine, or reproduce. But in this civilization those things are necessary for survival. The fact that reality requires you to do those things is natural force.
[...] I just don't have time to read every post in this thread [...] |
[...] |
[...] People without children pay property taxes (which mostly fund schools) and pay much more in income taxes than people with children. [...] |
Alex, you know nothing about the complexities of humanities interactions and what the potentials are for what humanity can achieve. Neither do I, only I actually know it. Taking a few figures, calling them trends and announcing some great revelation does not signify anything. Your bad habit of trying to get everyone together to solve one of humanities problems is exactly why liberty has such a hard time.
1) The statists do not have those answers either |
Social engineering = FAIL! |
[...] what fills the "god-shaped hole" in their hearts [...] |
At least Alex isn't so small minded to obsess over "what about the roads", but he is even worse in that he sees all of nature and humanity as fodder for government intervention. |
Liberty is living without a net. |
Alex, you know nothing about the complexities of humanities interactions and what the potentials are for what humanity can achieve. Neither do I, only I actually know it. Taking a few figures, calling them trends and announcing some great revelation does not signify anything. Your bad habit of trying to get everyone together to solve one of humanities problems is exactly why liberty has such a hard time.
I am very reluctant to advocate coercion, and I only do so as an alternative to an even more coercive outcome. And I am very reluctant to make any projections about the future, but in this case it's a matter of basicarithmeticAssumptions.
Communist retards will claim that money and property rights is "social engineering". What I'm doing is taking the capitalist philosophy one stem further, commoditizing value and providing a means to reward people for their labor.
This thread is all about reducing the current government force. And natalist incentives can exist without government.
That's a very shallow and juvenile understanding of it. Liberty is a consequence of the economic benefits derived from cooperation. It does not trump survival.
Besides, Dan Carlin addressed this in his "Population is Destiny" episode, citing that our lack of population growth is due to our prosperity.
That episode [MP3] (http://dancarlin.libsyn.com/media/dancarlin/cswdca94.mp3) mostly dealt with immigration from one country to another, which I am in favor of (but with some temporary limits (http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=14764.0)). That doesn't apply to the human race as a whole - there are no other planets we can accept immigrants from.
... here's what you append to all your forum posts if you want every person viewing them to hammer maqs.com for ~8MB of bandwidth: |
It is the centralized planning that constitutes the "engineering". |
I am noticing more and more how few people really get the concept of the "invisible hand". |
As long as it is voluntary and I can opt out. |
I just think you are wasting your time with this bizarre fantasy that somehow civilization is doomed if human reproduction is not managed. |
If the cooperation is not voluntary than it is not liberty. |
That episode talked about how Dan felt that there were too many people on the planet, [...] |
[...] & how he thinks economic prosperity will eventually lower, or keep in check, [...] |
citing that prosperous people don't want to have more than 2 or 3 kids tops |
[...] whereas people in 3rd world countries have 6 to 8 or even more kids. |
Where is your evidence that world population is either stagnant or shrinking? [...] |
Three government centers in the UK have been working on a way to use digital technology to help the elderly and the disabled. One of their ideas is a supermarket satellite navigation system (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/5241034/Elderly-shoppers-to-get-sat-nav-gadget-to-find-their-way-around-supermarkets.html) to help elderly people who get confused by changing layouts in the aisles. Professor Paul Watson, of Newcastle University, said: "Many older people lack the confidence to maintain 'normal' walking habits. This is often due to worries about getting lost in unfamiliar, new or changing environments." A kitchen for Alzheimer's patients packed with hidden sensors and projectors is also in the works.
So, did this thread persuade anyone to get pregnant yet?
(http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-bounce014.gif) (http://www.freesmileys.org)
No Taxes for ANYTHING, and there is no problem with low birth rates the government gives free money to poor people who shouldn't have children, and even if everyone only had 1 child and population declined slowly, advances in science would solve the Depopulation problems which we would have several generations to fix.
and of course there will be the Mormons who have like 10 kids to make up for the rest of the people
Yes, I am now pregnant. |
This idea really pisses me off, and I can't believe anyone takes it seriously. If anything, I would collect money and pay people NOT to have children.
I think my friends with children are starting to become a bit jealous of my happy childfree life. I say this because I get many more emails from friends telling me that "it'll be different when they're yours" and "your biological clock will start ticking soon" and "you don't have kids because you're selfish."Actually you should have every right to feel angry about paying for schools because they are just another worthless government program. Well that should be regardless of your parental status.
I think that the fact that the childless and childfree are already paying taxes for public services they're not using like schools is good enough.
I think my friends with children are starting to become a bit jealous of my happy childfree life. I say this because I get many more emails from friends telling me that "it'll be different when they're yours" and "your biological clock will start ticking soon" and "you don't have kids because you're selfish."
I met a wonderful guy. Who didn't care that it would be unlikely we would have any kids not that he was against children. However, much to our surprise I got pregnant.
I met a wonderful guy. Who didn't care that it would be unlikely we would have any kids not that he was against children. However, much to our surprise I got pregnant.That must have been an interesting conversation! Being "against children" sounds pretty adamant.
I met a wonderful guy. Who didn't care that it would be unlikely we would have any kids not that he was against children. However, much to our surprise I got pregnant.That must have been an interesting conversation! Being "against children" sounds pretty adamant.
Sorry bad sentence construction. He was not against children. Kind of like he was interested in me first. If we never had a child great. If we had a child that was great as well.
My OB was shocked when I turned up pregnant. Because really it was very unlikely. The interesting conversation was showing my partner my medical history. The fertility workup I had done years earlier indicating it was highly improbable that I would ever conceive and if I did improbable I could carry to term. Both of those happened without drugs. I did have to remain on bed rest for 6 months of the pregnancy. He was extremely supportive and thrilled.
Actually you should have every right to feel angry about paying for schools because they are just another worthless government program. Well that should be regardless of your parental status.
I have had it both a very exciting child free lifestyle and now I have a wonderful son. I was told I could never have children so I filled my life with travel and living in many different countries. It was a fun lifestyle but always something was missing often I was disconnected and lonely. When I finally moved back to the USA and decided to finally purchase a home. I met a wonderful guy. Who didn't care that it would be unlikely we would have any kids not that he was against children. However, much to our surprise I got pregnant. I some times reflect on my globe hopping days. But what I remember isn't marveling at the Great Buddha in Japan, touring Pamunjung or living in London or visiting the Orkney's after crossing the North Sea on a massive ferry, or my time in Amsterdam. I remember being very lonely and unfufilled. Now that I have a family I feel much more connected and never lonely.
It is really difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have kids but that is the best way I could put it. It is a personal life choice. If I had a choice to go back to my former lifestyle vs what I have now. I would choose to have my wonderful loving and funny boy.
Still, I would also highly recommend people postpone having kids until they are in their thirties just so they know themselves well enough to know if having a child is right for them. I have friends who are still childless but sometimes I think they wonder if it was the right choice.
Actually you should have every right to feel angry about paying for schools because they are just another worthless government program. Well that should be regardless of your parental status.
I have had it both a very exciting child free lifestyle and now I have a wonderful son. I was told I could never have children so I filled my life with travel and living in many different countries. It was a fun lifestyle but always something was missing often I was disconnected and lonely. When I finally moved back to the USA and decided to finally purchase a home. I met a wonderful guy. Who didn't care that it would be unlikely we would have any kids not that he was against children. However, much to our surprise I got pregnant. I some times reflect on my globe hopping days. But what I remember isn't marveling at the Great Buddha in Japan, touring Pamunjung or living in London or visiting the Orkney's after crossing the North Sea on a massive ferry, or my time in Amsterdam. I remember being very lonely and unfufilled. Now that I have a family I feel much more connected and never lonely.
It is really difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have kids but that is the best way I could put it. It is a personal life choice. If I had a choice to go back to my former lifestyle vs what I have now. I would choose to have my wonderful loving and funny boy.
Still, I would also highly recommend people postpone having kids until they are in their thirties just so they know themselves well enough to know if having a child is right for them. I have friends who are still childless but sometimes I think they wonder if it was the right choice.
I'm very glad for you :)
I've known since I was ten I didn't want to have any kids of my own, and I've not wavered for a moment since. I found out when I was twenty that I have some medical issues that pretty much nix childbearing. But I've always been happy alone, and when I find someone that makes me happy to be with him, that will be nice too. I'm not leaving out the possibility that I may someday want a child.
(But right now, my boyfriend is more than enough of a child at times!)
I agree with the waiting to have children, but 30 is sort of a sweet spot, as the chances of birth defects and pregnancy complications increase after 35.
Maybe the Earth itself is one giant tragedy of the commons, but according to the data I have read, the Earths population is set to go down starting in 2050. That figure is based on current trends and doesn't take into account unforeseen events that are inevitable like war, disease, or the invention of male birth control.
America is treading water, and Europe has been on the decline as a whole. Japan already peaked, and Chinas one child only policy worked. A middle class person in the Western world has a car, but someone who just moved out of the poverty line in Sierra Leone isn't about to go out and buy a car.
So, I don't really see a problem.
Maybe the Earth itself is one giant tragedy of the commons, but according to the data I have read, the Earths population is set to go down starting in 2050. That figure is based on current trends and doesn't take into account unforeseen events that are inevitable like war, disease, or the invention of male birth control.
America is treading water, and Europe has been on the decline as a whole. Japan already peaked, and Chinas one child only policy worked. A middle class person in the Western world has a car, but someone who just moved out of the poverty line in Sierra Leone isn't about to go out and buy a car.
So, I don't really see a problem.
They're going to invent male birth control?
Maybe the Earth itself is one giant tragedy of the commons, but according to the data I have read, the Earths population is set to go down starting in 2050. That figure is based on current trends and doesn't take into account unforeseen events that are inevitable like war, disease, or the invention of male birth control.
America is treading water, and Europe has been on the decline as a whole. Japan already peaked, and Chinas one child only policy worked. A middle class person in the Western world has a car, but someone who just moved out of the poverty line in Sierra Leone isn't about to go out and buy a car.
So, I don't really see a problem.
They're going to invent male birth control?
In pill form by 2012 or '13.
Rubbers aren't male birth control?
Rubbers aren't male birth control?
They are, but it would sure be nice for guys to have the same option women currently do-- use condoms and the pill, but once in an established clean relationship go with the pill only.
Of course, I wouldn't want it stopped, but I'm wondering if that will have the unintended effect on STD transfer rates.
We're going to see more of the same fertility trend: developed countries reproduce less, and undeveloped countries keep producing (until they become more developed), thus picking up the gap, but overall, slowing the increase until it caps somewhere fairly "reasonable."
My problem with all this is the people who "should have children" are typically the people having children (this is not an ethical comment--it's a comment on the thought processes that lead to or are absent in having children), and the gene pool is getting polluted. Fortunately, most significant genetic changes don't occur in 50 years, so it's probably a minor effect.
We're going to see more of the same fertility trend: developed countries reproduce less, and undeveloped countries keep producing (until they become more developed), thus picking up the gap, but overall, slowing the increase until it caps somewhere fairly "reasonable."
My problem with all this is the people who "should have children" are typically the people having children (this is not an ethical comment--it's a comment on the thought processes that lead to or are absent in having children), and the gene pool is getting polluted. Fortunately, most significant genetic changes don't occur in 50 years, so it's probably a minor effect.
Don't you mean the people who should have children are not having children? A while back I read an article on the psychology of why famine and war torn areas have increased childbirth rates. Because it seems counter intuitive to produce more children than you could possibly hope to care for. Whereas people in places that could support more children tend to have fewer. The main reason given was a statistical one. With each additional child the chances of your line continuing is increased even against the long odds of survival.